---
title: Central Historian (Hub-and-Spoke) deployment
slug: concepts/central-historian-hub-and-spoke-deployment
docTags: 
createdAt: 2025-08-31T16:33:07.243Z
---

A single Factry Historian instance collects data from multiple production sites into one central server.

It is a simple setup common for companies with multiple, often similar sites that have a need to aggregate and centralize data.

## When it’s used

- For corporate-level reporting across multiple production sites
- When sharing data, analytics, dashboards and insights between sites is valuable
- In cases where robust local collection is needed, but long-term data lives centrally

## Architecture

Factry's collectors run close to the data sources, e.g. machines and SCADA systems, on each site.

The collectors make sure the data is buffered locally and securely sent to the shared central historian.

Factry Historian runs either in a cloud/corporate datacenter, or sometimes one production site is chosen to host the server on-premise.

::Image[]{src="https://api.archbee.com/api/optimize/SMPo4IS9FkillUAMsur2c/FsM5Gg6DeOJzup220zgJK-20250925-082146.png" darkSrc="https://archbee-image-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/SMPo4IS9FkillUAMsur2c/FsM5Gg6DeOJzup220zgJK-20250925-082146.png" size="24" width="1451" height="2756" darkWidth="1451" darkHeight="2756" position="center" caption="Hub and spoke architecture" showCaption="true"}

## Functions used

- Collectors perform **buffering** in case the sites lose connectivity with the central Factry Historian server.
- \[Optional] [Organizations](docId\:iE9BM-ZMn69TUMtdfngBk) to separate environments per production site.

## Benefits

- A single source of truth for production data across the organization
- Only one server and dataset to maintain
- Easy integration with other enterprise systems via one central interface
- Governance and security can be handled in one place

## Considerations

- The individual sites are dependent on an active network connection to access the data stored in Factry Historian.
  - This becomes increasingly important to recognize when production-critical dashboards are built on that central dataset.
- Risk of central bottleneck if not built to scale properly
  - Think of a bare-metal server that has reached a storage or performance limit. Upgrading this server would render Factry Historian temporarily unavailable for all sites.
- Local OT teams can become heavily dependent on a central IT team to connect new data sources or onboard new users.

## Summary

A simple and common hub-and-spoke setup: data collected locally, processed and stored centrally, then shared enterprise-wide.